


Poker face

by Geektaire



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kidfic, Physical Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-19 14:49:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7365961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geektaire/pseuds/Geektaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl Dixon was a lonely man, that was a given. He only had his big brother, and that was just sometimes if he was honest. Who would have thought the end of days would cause him to be in charge of not only his own destiny, but of keeping alive a widow and her four children? Who would have honestly entrust their children to him? It seems like when they said you didn't get to chose who your family, that was meant the non blood related one too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another WIP... it hasn't gone through the beta, so be nice with me (it will eventually). Leave your comments about what you think about this... idk where this is coming from, or where it's going (if I'm honest).

 

Chapter 1

 

Daryl looked away to the other side of camp when those blue eyes made eye contact with his. He tried to ignore his brother’s laugh as he got to his feet and moved as far away from those eyes as he could.

Him and Merle had arrived to the camp a little over a week before, and those damned eyes had barely left his form since the moment he did. And there was something that unsettled him deeply, the few times he had maintained eye contact he had seen something that felt too close to comfort, that hit too close to home.

“Fucking asshole,” Merle muttered as he jogged up to catch up with him as they together walked down to where the water was. Daryl stayed silent, knowing it was better to let his brother speak than to try and shut him up. “Deputy pussy over there, is talking about how everyone has to pull their own fucking weight, like we haven’t been the ones feeding all those fucking brats.”

Daryl tried not to flinch at Merle’s words. Sure, it was actually him who had been feeding most of the camp, but he had done it without expecting nothing in return. He knew what it was to be hungry as a child, and he wouldn’t let them know what it was if it was within his possibilities.

They continued to walk, Merle being loud and obnoxious as usual, and Daryl nodding at the right times and grunting as to make him think he was paying attention. It was a technique he had mastered through the years, a way to be able to hide within himself and just let his brother believe he was behind everything he said and did.

“What the fuck are you two fucking brats doing here?!” Merle raising his voice made Daryl snap out of his little ‘break’ watching as the two dark haired boys he had seen around camp turned startled at the menacing presence of his brother.

“Why the fuck do you care, old man?” The smaller of the two, a black eye marring his face looked up at Merle a look of contempt in his face. The lankier, taller one with the glasses seemed to be trying to hide behind his smaller brother, his eyes not meeting theirs.

“You little shit,” Merle said as he took a step closer to the kid. Daryl tried not to look impressed when the kid didn’t back down, instead he took a step closer to Merle as if daring him to do something.

“What are you two doing here alone?” Daryl muttered as he threw his brother a warning look. As much as he didn’t like children, he wasn’t about to let his probably high as a kite brother touch either of them.

“What is it to you, asshole?” The kid had a mouth on him, and Daryl wasn’t sure if it was anger that was brewing in his chest or a laugh.

“Edward Michael Peletier.” A strict voice made the four of them tense immediately and Daryl couldn’t help but notice how the two kids paled at its sound. “What did I just hear you say?”

The smaller boy, Edward, bit his lip as he finally broke eye contact with Merle and turned to look behind them where the voice was coming from. “Nothing, Mamma,” he muttered as he looked down, his small feet kicking the dirt at his feet.

Daryl knew who it was, of course he knew. He had noticed her the moment they joined the ragtag group of people. The gray haired woman with the bunch of kids. The sweet quiet woman who had silently offered them a hot meal with a small smile, while never letting her voice be heard to them. Of course he knew who she was.

He dared to turn slightly to keep her in his eyesight. Blue eyes immediately sought his and he tried not to blush. She was not paying attention to him nor Merle, her attention was on the two boys in front of them, a mix between fear and exasperation on her face.

“That wasn’t nothing…” Her voice wasn’t as loud as her initial words, but the power behind it was still there. “I heard what you said to this kind men, is that the way to show your gratitude?” Daryl frowned as he heard her words, kind men? Him and Merle? “Weren’t you just telling me a little while ago how much you had liked that rabbit meat they brought yesterday?”

“Yes, mamma,” Michael said a frown on his face as he continued to look down. Daryl used those moments to look again at their mother, looking away as the blue eyes of the redheaded boy she had on her hip once again met his.

“Is that the way we say thank you, then?”

“No, mamma.” Daryl tried not to smile when Edward looked up at them once again. His blue eyes were still hard, false sweetness in his voice as he appeased his mother. “Thank you for the meat, sirs, and I’m sorry for calling you names.” With a cheeky look at his mother, the little rascal ran back to the camp. Slowing his run once he noticed his brother was slightly behind him.

“I’m really sorry about that.”

“You should control those brats of yours, woman.” Daryl tried not to wince as he saw her deflate at the tone his brother was using on her. “What good are you for if you can’t even control your own brood? Why have so many of them then?”

The gesture on her face was so much like Edward’s that there was no doubt the boy was hers. She looked down as she nodded. “Sorry.” Her voice was small when she spoke again, as she turned on her heels and started on her way back to the main camp. The redhead boy looking over her shoulder, his eyes not leaving Daryl’s as they retreated. A small hand coming up and waving at him as he was carried away.

“You are such a dick.”

.-.-.-.-.-

The Dixon brothers hadn’t made it back to camp until after night had fallen. Merle, as usual, had opened his big mouth, gotten people mad at him, and left him to clean his mess as he went and dropped into his own tent.

Daryl moved around the outskirts of the group as they all sat around the fire. He was relieved to find he was not being followed by once, and was quick to notice that the redhead was asleep in his mother’s chest. They little boy was resting his head over his mother’s chest, his small thumb in his mouth as his siblings sat around them.

“Here…” a plate of food was suddenly in Daryl’s hands, a frown on his face as he looked down at Edward, who was looking even more mad that he had done before. “Mamma sent me to give you this, at least I didn’t have to go to that shit hole you call a camp.” He muttered the last part, throwing a sideways look at his mother to make sure she hadn’t heard him.

Daryl grunted in response.

“Stop looking at her,” Edward muttered angrily making Daryl look down at him with a questioning look. “I see you looking at her, stop it.” The boy looked truly mad, his hands were in fists at his sides, trembling slightly. “You are just going to make it worse.”

His words were ominous, and Daryl stood there trying not to look as confused as he was feeling as he watched the boy go back to where his family was. Edward didn’t look at him as he went and sat himself in between his parents. Daryl still had no idea what he was making worse, and he was too tired to try and make sense of what the brat had meant. He would think about it later, he thought as he turned his back to the fire and started making his way back to his camp. He could feel eyes on his back, and he was almost sure he knew whose eyes were this time.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same as chapter one... unbetaed....

Chapter 2

“Hi.” The small voice made Daryl look up frowning from where he was gutting the rabbit he had been able to catch in his latest adventure away from camp. In front of him, looking up with his big blue eyes was the little redhead boy that had been staring at him at all times.

Daryl grunted at him before returning to what he was doing. The tip of his ears were red, but he knew no one would notice since no one paid enough attention to him. He was expecting the boy to leave, or to run back to his mother crying or some shit like that. Instead the boy climbed up to the bench beside him and stared as he continued with his task.

If it hadn’t been for how the boy would sometimes lean to close to Daryl, up to the point when he had sometimes use his elbow to keep the toddler from topping over, he wouldn’t have even noticed him. The boy was quiet, his blue eyes big and intelligent as he followed Daryl’s actions closely.

“Charles, what are you doing?” Both Daryl and Charles looked over the shoulder at where the boy’s mother was looking slightly panicked a few feet away.

Daryl looked at the woman, lowering his gaze quickly as their eyes met. The boy had her eyes.

“You can’t disappear like that from me.” Daryl could still hear panic in her voice, but there was nothing else but love as she approached the two of them. Charles immediately reached for her, in that universally known sign from children asking to be carried, and with a small grunt she pulled him to her arms.

“I’m really sorry Mr. Dixon.” She wasn’t looking at him as she said that, her eyes on her little boy. “I’ll make sure they don’t bother you again.” He hated how her voice had the same tone as when she had tried to apologize to Merle a few days before.

“Daryl,” he muttered surprising even himself. At her frown, he bit his lip before continuing, “my name is Daryl.”

The smile he got in return was bigger than he had expected. “I’m Carol…” she bounced the boy in her hip, “and you already met Charles.”

Silence fell upon them. He returned to his task without any further words, and he heard as she started to leave. Throwing a look over his shoulder, he couldn’t help but feel how the corner of his lips raised slightly as he saw Charles wave goodbye at him from over his mother’s shoulder. He raised a hand in turn.

.-.-.-.-

Merle was gone. That was the only thought running through Daryl’s mind over and over again as he walked from one side to the other of that rooftop. The only thing he had left of his big brother, his only family, was his hand.

The pain was still there as they made their way back to the quarry. The encounter with the vatos had taken some wind out of his sails, but the need for violence was burning in his veins. When the first shot was heard, the four of them sprinted their way back to the camp.

There were people running all over, alive and dead alike. Daryl shot a walker with his crossbow before he pushed it to his back, grabbing the rifle he was carrying instead. His eyes darted from one side to the other, trying to figure out what to do when a yell got his attention.

“Eddie! David! My babies!” Carol’s voice was breaking, as she kept Charles on her hip and Sophia on her side. Shane and Morales had been able to corral the woman and the children against the RV, and where using the position to be able to protect them better. But it seemed not all the children where there.

Daryl had heard her, and his eyes scanned the camp quickly trying to find the two little brats. He felt like his heart was about to jump out of his chest when he finally found them. Eddie was pushing his brother back, as a walker tried to grab them as it stumbled through the camp. Daryl brought his rifle up and shot, not taking time to see if he had gotten the walker as he rushed past it, grabbing a kid with each arm and hauling them back into the rest of the group.

He didn’t even understand what happened next. One moment he was carrying the two boys towards their desperate Mama, the next moment he under a pile of bodies as people around him cried and hugged each other. Not caring he was in the middle of it all.

With a grunt, and more care that even he thought it was possible, he was able to disentangle from that mess. The camp had finally calmed down. The walkers were all dead, and it was now time to mourn their dead. He felt a pang in his chest as he looked around, only to notice the amount of dead from among their mists.

Dead had befallen upon them all, and the loses were many. Dawn would come, but first they needed to mourn their fallen.

.--.-

“What are you doing?” Daryl didn’t even remember falling asleep. He had silently helped the rest of the camp all night, moving bodies and using the small amount of light they had to see if there was anything salvageable among the wreckage.

“He’s going to tell you to fuck off.” It was the same voice; Daryl knew he knew it but his mind was still asleep to process things well. “Yes, he saved us but…”

“What the fuck,” Daryl muttered as he opened his eyes, squinting when the light hit him directly in his face.

“It wasn’t me!” Eddie said as he put his hands up as if to prove his innocence. Daryl frowned when he finally noticed he had an audience. Eddie, the lankier brother, and Charlie were all kneeling in the opening of his tent, looking into it… watching him sleep. “I was just keeping this one from disappearing and scaring my mamma.” The oldest Peletier boy said as he pointed at where Charles was crawling into Daryl’s tent, not caring about the fact that the man was looking at him as if he was crazy.

“What the fuck,” Daryl muttered again as the youngest boy smiled at him, continuing to crawl until he was drapped over his chest.

“He likes you.” Daryl looked from where Charlie was lying over his chest, to where the one that had spoken, David, was looking at him with the same blue eyes the other two shared with their mother.

“What the fuck.” Was all Daryl could say, frowning even more when the two kids looked behind them startled, before standing and running away without a care in the world about leaving their little brother behind with him.

Meanwhile Charlie had seemed to have fallen asleep. As Daryl looked down, the boy was dozing contently over his chest, his thumb in his mouth. “What the fuck,” Daryl groaned as he let his head fall back and looked at the ceiling of his tent.

A muffle chuckle made him raise his head and look through the open canvas, only to see the fourth uninvited Peletier looking inside his messed up tent.

“I’m sorry,” Carol said as she tried to stop chuckling, a hand over her lips. “He had a hard time going to sleep after what happened last night, I’ll take him.”

Daryl tense as he saw her kneel and put her hand inside his tent. The Boy over his chest whining lightly at the sudden movement.

“Leave ‘im,” Daryl said as anxiety started to creep up on him as she moved a little closer.

“I can take him, I’m really sorry, he’s not usually the one to wander around.” Daryl tried not to flinch when he felt her hands brush his chest as she pulled the boy away and into her, making shushing noises as the toddler complained.

“Is alright,” he said softly as he laid back as he watched her start backing up. “He’s quiet.”

The sad smile that appear on her face said more than her words could, and Daryl felt ashamed of having put that much sadness in there. “Yes, he is,” she said softly as she dropped a kiss on the top of his head.

“I didn’t get a chance to thank you.” Carol looked at Daryl, seriousness in her face.

“It was nothing,” he murmured as he moved to sit, feeling to exposed looking up at her.

“Daryl…” he looked up as her voice cracked at his name. “I would have lost two of my babies if it hadn’t been because of you.” Her eyes called to him, and he couldn’t seem to be able to break eye contact. He couldn’t help but notice how her cheek had a small tint of blue that he was sure hadn’t been there a couple of days ago. “I owe you everything.”

He grunted non committedly, shrugging as he finally broke eye contact and started to pick on the lose threads of the wholes of his pants knees. “You were our Angel last night, Daryl.”

His face was bright red, and by the time he looked up she was well on her way back to the rest of the camp. Back to her dead husband and her bunch of kids. This was definitely something he didn’t need in his life, but yet he couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at [Geektaire](http://geektaire.tumblr.com) drop in and say hi!


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The image of her, tears falling down her cheeks as she slammed that pickaxe into her asshole husband’s head, was going to be one that he would never forget. She had approached him and asked him for the opportunity of having closure. And after looking around, and seeing that she had gotten her kiddies settled away he had nodded and just watched. 

Her tears weren’t for her husband. Not in the sense that Andrea’s where for Amy. Her tears were for her children, for the fear the five of them had lived with all their lives, for every scar that he knew she must have in her body if what he had seen in her eyes was true. Each tear was for a moment missed, a hit received, an insult given… this was her way of letting all that go. 

She smiled at him, a small smile but a smile none the less, as she returned the tool to him. He wanted to give her one in response, but it was like his body wasn’t his. With a sigh, he used the back of his forearm to wipe away the sweat that was accumulating on his forehead before he continued with his task. The sooner they were done; the sooner they would be able to leave. 

He had nothing left in his life. His only family was gone, and he felt just as adrift as whenever Merle wasn’t there to boss him around. He had never been someone that came up with his own ideas, his daddy had always said he was like a packing mule, good for the heavy workload but too stupid to think on his own. He might have been right, but his daddy wasn’t there anymore. And neither was Merle. 

He had so much anger inside of him. And for some reason, the fact that he could feel her blue eyes on him at times, that made his anger a little less, a little more manageable. He stood close to them as they buried her husband. He tried not to, but his eyes never left her face. She was a force to be reckon with, she was a strong pillar to her four little children. 

Her daughter, Sophia, clung to her mother’s side trying to hide the tears that fell down her cheeks for the monster that had made their lives a living hell. Eddie, he was strong and stoic, only shedding tears once his father was well buried. Little David was holding his big sister’s hand, his little chest heaving once in awhile. Charles was too young to understand, so his attention was again on Daryl over his mother shoulder, giving him a big toothy smile that touched his Dixon hardened heart. 

He walked back to the quarry with them. Keeping his eyes out to anything that was moving around them. Inside his head he couldn’t help but do a headcount every few yards. Sophia was talking with the Morales girl, Eddie and David were walking together with Carl, she was still carrying Charles on her hip even if her arms must have been tired by then. 

He didn’t speak to them. He didn’t really know what he would say if he did. He wasn’t sorry for their loss, the man had been a jackass and if he was honest, after he put things together between her marks and Eddie’s? He would have put the man down himself if he had been given the chance. 

Daryl tried to keep busy. But there was not much he could do. He started organizing his and Merle’s things, preparing everything to leave. 

“Hi.” This time he wasn’t caught as unprepared as the last time, as Charles shyly waved hello to him from a few feet away. 

“Hello,” Daryl answered frowning when Carol wasn’t immediately behind the little boy. “Where’s your mama?”

“There.” Charles pointed to where Daryl knew their camp had been. He stretched his neck, trying to see if he could get a glimpse of the boy’s mother. 

“You shouldn’t make her worry, ya know?” He had no idea of how to speak to a child. He probably hadn’t been close to a child since he had been one. 

Charles just shrugged, not looking concerned at all. 

“C’mon,” Daryl muttered as he got to his feet, walking towards the boy. “Let’s get you back to your Mama before she worries.” 

Charles put up his arms asking to be carried as soon as Daryl got within distance, making a complaining noise when he didn’t immediately did so. “What?” Daryl said as he looked down at the frowning little boy, “I don’t speak ‘kid’, what do you want?”

“Carry me, please.” 

“Oh,” Daryl said as he put his hands under the boy’s armpits and lifted him up. For a moment the two of them stood there, with Daryl grabbing the boy as if it was a package about to explode. It was soon solved when Charles threw his arms around Daryl’s neck, forcing the inexperienced man to bring him closer to his own body. “I have no fucking idea of what I’m doing.”

“It’s alright,” Charles said as he patted him on the shoulder, “mama will teach you.”

Daryl shook his head and chuckled, as him and his new ‘friend’ made their way around the trees and to the camp that Carol had shared with her asshole husband. 

Charles was quiet on Daryl’s arms as they made their way to his mother, allowing Daryl to hear the muffled sniffles coming from inside the destroyed tent. He looked around, looking for her other three kids, frowning when he didn’t see them around. 

“Woman…” Daryl frowned down at the boy in his arms as he heard the tone he had used, harsher than he meant to. The sniffing ceased inside the tent, and he saw as the figure inside tried to make her way outside. He continued when he saw her gray haired head appear through the entrance of the tent. “This one seems to like wandering around.”

“Charles?” Daryl tried not to flinch when she was out of her tent and pulling Charles away from his arms quickly. “Where did you find him?” She asked Daryl, as she hugged the squirming toddler into her chest. 

“He was the one that found me,” Daryl said biting his lip, trying not to smile at the disgruntled face Charles was making at his mother smothering. 

“I told you to stay with Lori.” She said to Charles, sighing when the boy only grinned at her. “You can’t do that Charles, it’s dangerous.”

“Daryl will protect me.” The way the boy said the words made something in Daryl’s chest feel tight. The boy was completely and utterly sure that he would not let anything happen to him; and Daryl didn’t know how to feel about that. 

When Daryl finally looked at Carol, to see the reaction of the boy’s mother to such words; he felt anger start crawling from the same place that usually was reserved for everyone else in his life. There was a face of bewilderment, of incredulity, that Daryl was not sure if he should be offended or just plain mad at the implications. 

“I would never let anything happen to him, woman.” Daryl said, a sneer on his face as he looked at her. She had seemed nice the few times they had met before; he had thought she was different from all those other people that looked down at him for being a ‘stupid redneck’. He was apparently wrong. 

“I know that,” Carol whispered, biting her lip as if to try to keep a smile from appearing in her face. “Is just Charles doesn’t usually speak around strangers.”

Daryl frowned, his anger disappearing almost completely as he looked at the mother-son duo. “But we ain’t strangers, are we Chuck?” 

The giggle he got as a response from the toddler was all the answer he needed. The grin he got as a response from Charles’ mother, well that was just extra. 

Daryl cleared his throat as he looked around their decimated camp. Their camp had been the first one to be reached by the walkers the night before, and everything was upturned. Their tent was a lost case, since her husband had been inside when he was attacked and there were remnants of that all over. 

“I’m trying to see if there’s anything that I can save.” Her soft voice brought him out of his thoughts, as he looked at her once again sad face. “So far I’ve been able to get some of the children’s bags, but we’re going to have to stay at the RV because our tent.” She pointed to the devastated tent. 

Daryl bit his lip once again, before moving his hand to his mouth and biting the side of his thumb. The RV would have been a good idea, if it wasn’t where Shane was keeping Jim ‘safe’. 

“You can stay in my tent.” The words came out before he had even processed them, but once he did he realized he had meant them. At Carol’s look he continued, “I’ll stay in Merle’s it might be a little bigger but I don’t trust it to have kiddies inside, and you and your brood can stay at mine.”

“I don’t want to impose- “

“You aren’t.”

And that’s how Daryl ended up sharing camp with a widow and her four children. His life just kept getting weirder and weirder. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I'm posting this as it comes. All Mistakes are mine and only mine.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at [Geektaire](http://geektaire.tumblr.com) drop in and say hi!


End file.
